About three and a half minutes into this LOOONG clip, you will see every liberal’s favorite girlfriend Rachel Maddow start arguing with David Frum about whether political humor is as discourse-cheapening and violence-inciting as shouting “Kill him!” at a political rally. “We all could do better,” says Frum, boringly. Then he says Rachel Maddow should invite Paul Wolfowitz on her show for a Serious Discussion, and then they both have a hearty chuckle because really, Wolfowitz? That clown? [MSNBC]

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That thin blanket of snow that fell on Washington last night may have been sufficient enough to keep some kids home from school, but over at The Note, pretentious affectation refuses to take a holiday. Summoning their augurs to slice open the innards of their tired, be-googled simians to look for signs and portents and deliver up a stupefyingly, too-clever-by-half screensaver of banality called “The Five Basic Rules of Politics.”

Ye Gods, I call on you to bring forth a bounty of a million spoons, and, so appearing, please, do gag me.

THE FIVE BASIC RULES OF THE PHONED-IN NOTE LEDE:

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So all the nets were going full coverage of that Nike plane, and now it’s finally landed. What’s that adage about why most news is about tragedy? “Planes take off and land safely everyday“? But it’s news when the plan happens to be owned by Nike. Pity the Amalgamated Widget Corp execs that get stuck in a holding pattern. Yet it could be better: Fox News commentators are currently talking about how exciting it would have been had the plane not landed safely. “I was expecting to see nothing but emergency trucks,” says one. Sheppard Smith looked on the bright side: “It had to have been at least somewhat scary” for those on the plane, but he was hoping for something more “after this three hour ‘just do it’ commercial.” MORE »

It’s been a mixed blessing of a first day for me since Wonkette’s e-mail cup, filled with bile and other assorted goodies, slosheth at only half full. (I’m told this never happens.) And the subject that’s been most bandied about at this neverending banquet of ass-fuckery? Linguistics, or more specifically The Note’s unexplained yanking of “jejune” — followed by the covert and highly weird replacement of it with “peppery” — from a post about Bush’s “cowboy swagger and yuppie self-consciousness.” MORE »

The heat has everyone at the Post a little woozy. How else to explain yesterday’s lead Style section essay?

[L]et us consider that shade, descendant of Middle English’s sceadu, is the land between light and dark. It is the world of in-between in which meaning is determined by the degree of diminished light. There is shade, the good girl of daylight and cool breezes. Then there is her naughty sister, shadow, that which makes dark things possible, some of them alluring in spite of their danger. Or maybe because of.

Yes, an essay about shade. Do you think this means we won’t get an essay about shadow, the naughty sister? We’re hoping they’re still on track for the upcoming essays about ice, cool breezes, and talcum powder (and talcum powder’s naughty sister, chalk!). MORE »